DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum help with phoenix - looking for a good area

My parents are looking at buying a retirement property in Phoenix and I was curious what are the best areas.I heard Scottsdale,Mesa and Tempe. With that being said are there better areas and bad neighborhoods.If any fellow dawgtalkers live there or have lived there you advice is appreciated, thanks

hahaah only thing i know of lake Havasue is that my brother tells me that alot of parties go on there and that girls gone wild taped alot of shows there..... dunno if it would be a good retirement place for the folks... he lives in Kingman and its pretty nice

I lived there for 5 years. A few guys (SunDawg I believe) have lived there longer, so you might want to try to PM if noone chimes in.

Here's my take:

1. If they can afford it, I would highly suggest Sedona and/or Flagstaff. Much more moderate temperatures. Much less hustle/bustle of a large spread out city like Phoenix. Yet, close enough to drive down fairly easily.

2. Stay away from Tempe unless they really like having college kids around. Arizona State is sort of a commuter school in that there are 50K students that go there and most of them live off campus (school is in Tempe).

3. There are some bad areas in Mesa (north of 60 is sort of spotty. some areas are nice and others I wouldn't suggest. it's likely changed a bit since I've been there as to which are which). East Mesa was nice a few years ago and I suspect still is, which is where I lived.(south of US-60, East of 202....out by Gilbert and Apache Junction).

4. There are a few bad areas in Scottsdale as well, so make sure you check out the areas in person (very apparent in Scottsdale, there are super ritzy areas....relatively poorer areas....and little in between).

5. Chandler is nice, but probably too expensive for a retiree as prices are high due to Intel being there. Same with Gilbert.

6. Haven't mentioned West PHX yet. I don't know as much as I mostly traveled to the westside to see spring training games, but Glendale was pretty nice and most of it is relatively new.

7. Lake Havasu borders Cali and isn't really all that close to PHX, so that's quite a bit farther out. It is nice (if they get into an area that isn't effected as much by spring break and a couple other long weekends during the year).

8. Oh, if they do have the $$$ to burn and want to stay in PHX, my favorite area of the city is South of 'South Mountain' on Pecos road. It's surrounded by Indian Reservations and South Mountain, so it won't be built up anymore and is beautiful (fully with sun setting over mountain directly to your west). forget the sub-city name but it's a long Indian-style name that starts with 'A' (awatukee or something)

Random question No Logo.

Did you ever go up to Cave Creek when you lived in AZ?